Pappystein

What information are you in need of. I am sitting on a pile of it for a future Naval Sitrep article. It is mostly subjective ATM but it could get the platform in the game now (I think.)

Don't forget it is BACK in production after a 40 year hiatus by Viking Aircraft!

Also if we went through a database and fixed ALL the issues with Russian aircraft too many people would get confused and ask for crazy non existent things like the Su-33 or Su-30MKI. Russia, Like the United States has a governing body for Designation of military Aircraft. the VVS, in the case of Russia has only approved three new Sukhoi Su-27S Derivative designations since the Su-27M and Su-27PU entered testing in the early 1990s. Those are Su-27SM, the Mid-life update to the Su-27S/Su-27P aircraft, Su-35S, new production Flankers with new structure evolved from the canceled Su-27M, and Su-35UB which like the Su-35S is a new production Su-27UB with new structural design and new avionics. Unlike the United States, when a plane changes more than 50% commonality, the Russians re-designate the aircraft. *Cough* F/A-18E/F Super Hornet *Cough* But now I am digressing off topic. There have been several Naval Sitrep articles where this exact fact was discussed. No need to cover old ground further

Actually only the MiG-29M and MiG-29K have the 4 pylon wing capable of carrying 4x R-27 Alamo missiles. I have not delved into the Commander edition database in years but I know that several database in ANW side of things have had issues with not adding the 4th pylon on either MiG-29 or Su-27 variants that deserve it. Here is a breakdown of the other Russian aircraft that were expanded from a 3 pylon wing to a 4 pylon wing; Su-27K , Su-27M, Su-27SM Su-27PU family, Su-34, and Su-35S. No other variant prior to 2010 has a 4 pylon wing on either the MiG-29 family or the Su-27 Family Oh as a final thought the maximum quantity of R-27T or R-27ET IR Alamo missiles is 2x for the MiG-29, and 2x for the Su-27 family irregardless of 3 pylon or 4 pylon wing for either aircraft type. If you want more IR guided missiles you are left with R-60 Aphids or R-73 Archers. That is a limitation because of Computer software. The Software is programed based upon VVS Doctrine on the use of Long range IR guided missiles. Hope that helps Craig P

The fact of the matter is... The F-15 was DESIGNED for carrier operation... IE it was stressed for it. McDonnall Douglas was BANKING on it atracting orders from the Navy. There were more Navy proposals for the F-15 than there ever was for any other aircraft in history. One proposal had a large conformal pod below the fuselage to allow two Phoenix missiles to be carried (max 4 with 4 Winders on the OUTER wing pylon) As part of my large collection of F-14 junk I have a lot of the proposals for the F-15"N" ALL of them call out the fact that the Airframe is ALREADY stressed for carrier operation and the only things that would need changing would be a Folding wing, Different landing-gear and Naval Grade Arrestor hook. Craig P PS I would sooner trust my life to a rickety old pre-WWII Po-2 with the origional fabric than to a F-22 after a Carrier launch! Anyone wonder why NATF failed? Could it be you can't make a 2nd gen 100% Stealthy aircraft survive multiple carrier cycles?! HMMM?

Actualy when you consider how many officers are generational officers in the Royal AF/Royal Navy this isn't that big of deal. ALSO in the case of a first strike against Nato the PAL is slower almost negating these bombs. Lastly from the description you could fly with bombs armed with this key and safely return to base with them. Else wise you would need to arm in flight (that means Green Parrot, Redbeard and WE177 would have to have some sort of secondary arming procedure while in flight. After all PAL didn't stop a B-52 from hauling Nukes from one base to another a couple months ago did it? The PEOPLE are the most important part of the security of Nuke weapons not the Overhead. Craig P

I think they actually mean one of two things. A) the Sonar Dome creates more drag under some conditions than anticipated in the design The ships average speed (and thus average forces on the hull as exerted by the water) are HIGHER than anticipated. Sorry for me if the ship isn't designed to run at 30+ knots it should not be a 30+ knot warship! Craig P

The DDG-1000 design needs an overhaul. In construction materials and application. Leave the hull form and superstructure intact. Just don't spend money on exoctic materials to reduce RCS. Yes more Burks should be ordered. DDG-1000 is more CG-1000 than anything else (come on it is ~10,000 tons! A Baltamore class CA is ~10,000 tons as well!))

Hmm where **IS** that disk. Major "Gunfighter" Pappystein Reporting for duty... err wait need the disks first.... ARGH! PS from my Online Squadron days (VF-477 Stormraiders) I highly suggest either the VarkLib or the 714thLib files for realisim. Damn, I am gonna need to dust (literaly) my sticks off. Didn't think you could Online FA anymore! Craig P PS don't be supprised if I BOMB up for an AIr to Air mission Pete, if I can get up and running I can run you through the training program we used in the 477th (after all I wrote the dang thing!) I think I still had the all time Kill to loss ratio vs Human pilots with guns in the squadron. And no I was not flying the F-22, X-29 or Harrier/AVSTOL at the time either (or any other Hyper manoverable aircraft) I was generally flying the A-4 or the F-15E

Gah! Ditch the stealth. You are not going to make a ship INVISIBLE. you can make it look smaller but not SMALL ENOUGH!

I think Fire Scout or some other similar VTOL UAV program is worth investment. Fire Scout has it's own problems. Many UAVs are going after, yep you guessed it STEALTH. Firescout is no exception. How do you make a HELICOPTER stealthy? YOU CAN NOT, JUST GIVE IT UP ALREADY! Stealth killed the Comanche, and is killing the USAF. Whoa, lemme guess .. not a fan of the Super Bug, huh ? If it was half as good as the Bug I would be more appreciative. I will take a USMC F/A-18D(NA) over a F/A-18F any day of the week. The only advantage the F gives over the D is a slight (and I do mean SLIGHT) increase in range and a better radar. Woopie! Oh yeah there is the "bringback" and extra weapon pylons. I could give a flying beep about either of those. The plane is a DOG in the air compared to the F/A-18C/D (heck a F-14 Tomcat with 4 Phoenix missiles is more maneuverable in the merge!) If the calculator thumping buerocrats are right the AMRAAM makes the merge a non issue in Air to air combat. Those same people also said the F4H-1 should not have a gun and promptly pulled the 4 20mm cannons from it's requirement. The F4H-1 is more commonly known today as F-4 Phantom II! So your opinion of a mixed air wing of F/A-18E/F and JSF would be ... ? Fighter is the JSF, Attack plane is the F/A-18. I could care about stealth but then again the JSF CAN carry wing pylons! JSF also performs SEAD/Ironhand role. EA-18G or EF-18G (whatever the designation is today) performs SEAD/Ironhand roll while including the role of mini-rivet joint (each CVV should have a minimum of 6 or 8 of these birds rather than the 4 EA-6Bs in current CVVs!) I will not say the F/A-18 Super Bug is not useful. It is just not useful in it's proported role in my opinion. Craig P

My short rant I, Like Tony, would rather not be at war. To me War is an acedemic exercize in the mind that should be avoided if at all possible. However my wanting to avoid it does not mean I am against it. (Confusing huh? You should see how it plays in my head!) I just love the statement "for the first time in history our opponent has newer aircraft than we do" So, World War I didn't happen? You know, the war that we had to BORROW aircraft from France because our planes were TOO OLD, and our production capability was just not up to par even though the airplane was "invented" here in the US. I love idiots who spout such things without realy knowing. Are the Planes in the US getting older? Certainly. Who's fault is that? SIMPLE the IDIOTS that think EVERY damn aircraft in the US combat forces should be 100% Stealth! Does a stealthy aircraft have major advantages over a non stealthy aircraft? Heck yes! Is it worth the cost? To me, NOT on the scale we are spending for it today. The BIGGEST area where the US could SAVE money is by cutting about 90% of the UAV/UCAV programs. Most all of the money invested into these programs has been ridiculous wastes on things you just KNEW were non starters from the get-go. Dark-Star anyone? Hello! an aircraft that is a flying saucer with a wing attached at the extreme REAR is GOING to be TOTALY unstable and nigh Impossible to control! DUH! There went a Billion + Right now there are only two UAV programs worth ANY sort of investment, Predetor and PredetorB/M the Global Hawk needs to be completely RE-DESIGNED from the ground up. No way are you going to take an experimental aircraft that was NOT designed for any sort of payload and make it into a long flying recon aircraft with a large (2000lb class) payload and NOT have problems. How many Global Hawks have crashed so far? Nearly HALF of all production to the start of 2007!?!?!?! The F-15 Production line is STILL open USAF. Throw together a contest for "Air Superority Fighter program" a DESIGNATED BACKUP to your much vaunted "Air Dominance Fighter" (F-22) Put the F-15 Back into production for USAF TFWs! Give them an aircraft with AESA, two seats, modern countermeasures and coatings. And you will have a Fighter aircraft that CAN take on those Su-27/Su-27PUMKK (aka Su-30MKK) better than the current generation F-15C. Oh and since the airframe is that of the F-15E you get a Long life, Better engines (hello F110-GE-132!) and oh yeah a Yeoman Air to ground fighter as well! JSF a great program should be cut/reduced from the USAF side. US Navy needs a real fighter plane. USAF has the F-22 and F-15. Sorry Navy and Marine peeps, The F/A-18 is NOT a plane I want to fly WVR Air to Air Combat (something that is more likely with CHina than most other countries) The Plane is not all that agile and more to the point does not have the RANGE needed to perform a good fighter sweep. Give the Navy increased importance on the JSF program to leverage the USAF's draw down in the program. US Navy NEEDs some stealth. JSF should be the DOMINANT fighter plane on Carrier decks. (well the F-14 in a new form SHOULD be but we can not all have what we wish for and Dick C has more power than me... His wish won out... THIS TIME. ) On that subject the US Navy needs to DRAW DOWN production of the sub-standard F/A-18E/F Super hornet NOW. I have NO problems with all the current production E/Fs being changed over to EF-18G "Growler" EW warfare is going to be big in the future. BUT STOP the "fighter" versions (yes that is in quotes. A plane that can not maintain Ps as well as a F-4 Phantom should NOT be in MODERN US service! Stupid people thinking the robot missile is better than a good aircraft! They thought that with the F6D Missiler, They thought that with the F-111B, they thought that with the F/A-18A. USAF has routinely chosen a more manoverable aircraft over one with extra bells and wistles (F-22 vs F-23 comes to mind as the LATEST such choice.) US Navy has stedily chosen REDUCED maneuverability aircraft since the F-14 (and it was a Blip in this trend only) The Last truly maneuverable US Naval Fighter was the F8U/F8U-3 Crusdader family. The F8U-3 could have ALSO gotten the US-Navy a Mach 3 fighter plane! In Disimilar Air combat (wtih F110 Engines, NOT with TF30s) the F-14 could hold it's own against a F8U manoverability class aircraft (IE it wasn't as good but the differnce could EASILY be made up with a smarter/more aware pilot) F/A-18A-D Hornets can hold their own vs the F-14. F/A-18E/F CAN NOT HOLD IT'S OWN VS a F/A-18A-D!!!!!!! TELLING! So let me say this. (Before a bunch of Navy and Marines try to kill me for offending them) The F/A-18E/F is probably the Best tactical BOMBERS in US service (It is MILES above what the current Standard F-15E can due in terms of mission types, precision delivery and flexibility.) It just isn't a Fighter. The Designation should revert to the ORIGONAL designation of the F/A-18 Hornet. A-18 as in Attack aircraft Number 18 (out of sequence but that was the designation given) All Squadron equiped with the A-18E/F should be re-designated as VA (for A-18E) and VAH (for A-18F) Ok Off my soap box without all my ranting thoughts vented yet. have to get to work PDQ here! Craig P

While it is true Russian/Soviet Union had quality "joys" most of those quality problems were infact DESIGNED defects for export grade weapons. Something that we mostly western world people are just finding out about now. For example. The AA-10 Alamo (R-27R) was made in 2 versions R-27R and R-27R1. The R-27R1 was the export version. The Difference? Motor was the same (in theory) missile control systems were identical (again in theory) but the seeker was obviously DIFFERENT. Infact it was the same seeker as the old AA-7A Apex R-23 missile (the AA-7C Apex R-24 missile shares its seeker with the R-27R.) To the theory portion of my above statement. I have 4 sources stating that Soviet export practice was to ship the components with the worst tollarences to it's non Warsaw Pact countries. As a further example there were THREE versions of the MiG-29 Fulcrum A. Izdeliye 9.12 Soviet/Russian use Izdeliye 9.12A Warsaw Pact use (MOSTLY identical to 9.12 except for things like nuclear capability etc) Izdeliye 9.12B Countries like Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, India just to name a few. Radar does not have as many ECCM modes, Lack Radar Identification Friend or Foe (all but requiring proper Ground based control have Poitive ID on Bogeys before launching intercepts) No Western power to date has actualy flown Combat vs Russian/Soviet standard equipment. Well atleast not since 1958-70ish! The only "Russian/Soviet" issue aircraft to go into combat against a western airfroce is the orgional Su-17 (since 1958). A small batch of early production Su-17s were striped of their Nuclear equipment and given to Egypt. They were used against Isreal. This was before the Export Su-20/22 was put into production for export swing wing fighter bombers. Craig P Sources include: Articles on the web about "invasion of Hungary" circa 1956, Several issues of World Air Power Journal/International Air Power Review Famous Russian Aircraft Mikoyan MiG-31 Famous Russian Aircraft Mikoyan MiG-29 Several books in Aerofax series including the Su-7/17/20/22 family.

It looks like my earlier guess was correct. the "Deep store" Mavericks are all AGM-65A/B/D models with the Shaped Charge AKA HEAT warhead. USAF is still using G/K Mavs off of A-10s and F-16s (local A-10 ANG was seen flying with an aquisition round less than 12 months ago!) My bet is the re manufactured Mavs will retain their shaped charge warhead and be called something new. They WON'T be called AGM-65C or C-2 but they will be for HARPOON game purposes AGM-65C which is in the next main annex release (Harpoon5 or whatever Chris and Larry will call it.) Lastly I should note the following comments. LOAL Maverick was tested. That would be the long fabled AGM-65L "Longhorn" Maverick. Craig P

As I understand it the work to convert Yaknot to Bramos is mostly multiple launch modes. Russia just didn't have the $$$ to finish the project themselves.

I have been thinking about this issue for a long time now. 1-2 years long time that is. Here is what I have come up with. 1) More flags are needed on SENSORS 2) EMCOM needs to be re-done on sensors. EG Ships may use generic surface search radars in real life, in the game it is all or nothing. Aircraft Might use a VERY low power Terrian Following Radar to fly NOE (LANTIRN anyone?) 3) The AI (for AI controled missions) should automaticaly turn on the TFR while leaving other sensors OFF or standby during a mission at V/Low/NOE. A Player controled mission (plotted) should allow the player to select "Terrain Following Sensor, Passive, Active, with a greyed out selector for intermetint. 4) the Game code should be re-written that Aircraft without a TFR sensors (READ ANY SENSOR WITH A boolean "Is a Terrain following sensor") can not fly TFR! Common Low level interdiction aircraft (Tornado IDS/ECR, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-111 Aardvark, Su-24 Fencer) all have a seperate Terrain following radar. Some aircraft (F-15E Strike Eagle, A-6E TRAM intruder) have MORE Than one Terrain Following sensor (TRAM/ LANTIRN's Nav IR sensor) 5) Terrain following sensors need two additional data fields. Overland "safe altitude" and Oversea "safe altitude" Safe altitude is 2x what the absolute lowest the aircraft would fly wartime is. So for Aircraft like the Super Etendard in Jan's example below would have a Safe overwater TFR of 30 meters. That means non Weapons free missions are flown at 30 meters and missions with weapons free on them are flown at 15 meters. Ok this is a lot of programming work to make it work but it IS doable and it will IMPROVE REALISIM in the game.

In light of the fact that the USAF is looking for a low colateral damage weapon it would not be supprising if the Shaped Charge warhead is used and thus it would be the AGM-65C that was put into LRIP before being canceled in the very early 80s. The last of those stocks made during LRIP were used up during Desert Storm by USMC Harriers. AGM-65C uses all the same info as AGM-65E except the warhead is the 17DP Shaped charge warhead used to defeat Tanks and strong fortifications.

As an asside the F/A-18 was tested with MERs (6 500lb class weaps) and TERs (3 500lb class weapons) During inital work up. However the Drag would impose a FULL load flight characteristic even with a light load of just 12 (2 MERs) Mk82s. MERs are absolutely not carried on service F/A-18s. The TER however has been used on land based hornets. However due to the scarcity of USN TER racks there is no official H4 load out for them. (They are all left over from the F-4 Phantom days.) I would stick with Peter G's loadout suggestion. And the Mk82 can be dual mounted on the CL of F/A-18C/Ds Craig P

Part of the reason it took so many "Heavy" PGMs was the use of the M118 (3000lb) based GBU-9 (HOBOS) and GBU-11 (PAVEWAY I) bombs. These bombs have a thin wall case and have a 50% chance of failure AFTER striking a hardened target. I believe in fact the first span was droped by GBU-9 EO guided bombs (think 1st generation GBU-15 with M118 warhead!) All the secondary attacks were made by aircraft armed with GBU-8 HOBOS (Mk84 derived HOBOS, directly lead to GBU-15) and GBU-10A Paveway I laser guided bombs. Most of these bombs were dropped by the 555th "Triple Nickle" TFS. The Elite GBU squadron of Vietnam (they tested almost ALL the 1st generation GBUs including Laser guided Cluster weapons (PaveStorm) LGBs (Paveway) and EO-GB (GBU-8, GBU-9.) The M118 was removed from service circa 1972 because of the easy break up of the bomb. The Mk84 warhead was more effective at any target other than a field full of troops. Craig P PS there was also an IR guided version of the GBU-8 known as the GBU-8A/B but it only had a AIM-9H sidewinder seeker on it and could only attack HOT targets (Power plants, Truck park with engines ideling etc)